roots belt, platemail of life, mages, downgrading small zone

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kiryan
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roots belt, platemail of life, mages, downgrading small zone

Postby kiryan » Wed May 29, 2002 11:06 am

First off both zones involved were good little zones. 8 man groups, not a lot of time, not done all of the time, but not a lot of eq either. Really, 1 uber piece in roots, 2 mediocre pieces in troll king. I can't understand why they both had the primary piece of eq downgraded. Not only that why the downgrade in both instances was to make it !mage?

Now, I can only assume the platemail was changed cause mages shouldnt be wearing plate. This must be the reason cuz it certainly doesnt reduce mage hps since ringmail is still in the game and done often.

roots belt on the other hand im at a total loss. it is somewhat difficult and always had a unique aspect to it plus potential for spank. The only reason i can see for the change is to reduce mage hps and make -str on eldritch rings more heinious. Its effectively a -17 hp loss and -9 str for mages. thats significant, but how significant, theres what 100 mageable ones in the game? rich mages and old school mages dont have to suffer this penalty? aren't these the people that have the huge hps you wanted to affect?

the only other thing i can imagine was that it was downgraded to make way for a new mage belt. *ponder*

so anyhow, id like to hear other perspectives and opinions. id like to hear what the driving motivation was. It just doesnt make any sense to me.

oh and what im pushing for here, is if your sure of the roots belt change for whatever reason, all roots belts should change. if your not sure, the !mage flag should be removed from the new belt. i really dislike quasi artifacts.

btw you can leave the old ansi when you make the change. might even be cool to leave both items in the database just change the old one to have the !mage flag.

[This message has been edited by kiryan (edited 05-29-2002).]
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Postby Yayaril » Wed May 29, 2002 5:19 pm

They should just make the new belts better than the roots belt at a harder challenge.

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Postby Waelos » Wed May 29, 2002 8:11 pm

Hey, I lead roots once and there was NO belt. My group was rather vexed. I think that was when folks were toying with the idea of making it rare. . .so. . .where's my belt?! =) *poke*


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Postby Malacar » Wed May 29, 2002 9:09 pm

I'd rather see roots belt go back to what it was and be rare. The change makes no sense.

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Postby kiryan » Wed May 29, 2002 9:28 pm

look obviously the change was made for a reason. it was probably to reduce mage hps and to increase the effect of str eq and -str eq (read eldritch).

making it rare does not address their intent. this is not a risk vs reward issue. if it was the new belt would have less stats or the zoen would be harder. the !mage flag is less stats only in a limited way. the change made no sense soley because you left 100 mageable belts in the game.

affect all belts or put it back the way it was. this is coming from a guy who has access to two of the old belts.

[This message has been edited by kiryan (edited 05-29-2002).]
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Postby Shargaas » Thu May 30, 2002 2:05 am

pmail of life - added !mage, removed !goodrace.
I would not consider that a downgrade or upgrade

The reasoning behind the change: Its bad enough that all players of the same class tend to look the same, do we really need all priests and mages to have access to the same equipment.

I can't say wether this was the motivation behind the roots belt change but why is making something only usable by 1/2 the casters a 'downgrade'. Those who already had belts did not even lose the use of their eq (unlike pmail where about 3-6 mages were using it).
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Postby Dalar » Thu May 30, 2002 3:33 am

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Shargaas:
<B>
I can't say wether this was the motivation behind the roots belt change but why is making something only usable by 1/2 the casters a 'downgrade'. </B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

because now mages are the weakest people ever. with 2 eldritches u are at -18 str. in order to balance it you have to wear talons and sapphires. also, artimus belt looks fugly and so does amethyst belt. mages need hps more than clerics. and don't give me that "don't wear eldritches then" b/c tit ring sucks, spider ring is lame to get b/c u can't teleport in, amethyst is fugly, giantkind is so rare it's not even funny, and nobody does crapvale.

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Postby Jurdex » Thu May 30, 2002 4:07 am

Hey, now demi girdle and the amethyst belt don't look so unattractive.

There are still plenty of roots belts in the game that are mageable. If you (anyone) want one bad enough I am sure you can get one. This isn't that big a thing, I don't think.

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Postby kiryan » Thu May 30, 2002 7:33 am

its not much of a downgrade unless your a mage. then its a huge downgrade. sure to the other 60% of the population its doesnt matter. as a matter of fact probably 30% of those folks have the old belt so it actually just gave them a demi-artifact they can use to get some rather nice trades.

So in essence, all you really did was downgrade the lowbies. the ones that didnt have old belt before. the ones who will never really be able to trade for it cause they really aren't going to be able to acquire anything of worth that an old schooler with the belt doesn't already have. Widen the gap between the haves and have nots. no big deal. that is truly the only change you actually made, cause as we've established there are hundreds of belts available.

If all you intended was to downgrade the eq a little, a !melee or a !priest flag could've been added. Why !mage? shall we talk about how many priest classes there are vs how many mage classes? There are 1.6 to 3 times as many mages classes (depending on which race you play).

enc, inv, ill, ele, nec/lich, squid
cleric, shaman, druid

>pmail of life - added !mage, removed !goodrace.
I would not consider that a downgrade or upgrade

ok, not much of a downgrade, maybe an upgrade... but variety? come on. I really can't believe that you guys thought that flagging an old piece of !uber eq from a small zone !mage was a good way to diversify the eq people wear. How many people would actually wear platemail of life over jot ringmail. Eventually even the clerics will get ringmail (if in fact they don't already have it, how often is troll king done). So much for eq diversity... Well, I guess there is starsilver plate. Now, there was a way to get mages and casters to where different gear.

Variety... if you wanted variety, id suggest flagging pmail of life really didnt accomplish anything, and you should've known that it wouldnt. Flagging ringmail !cleric or !mage wouldve accomplished some variety.

heres some more on variety for ya, how many goodie zone groups done TK since the change? Last time i did TK was pre-change. one less zone we bother to do. In retrospect, don't you think it might be a good idea to reflag it mageable? Maybe someone will actually go to the zone again.

[This message has been edited by kiryan (edited 05-30-2002).]
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Postby Yayaril » Thu May 30, 2002 7:40 am

For more variety- how about more restrings? For writing a story for your level 50 title, an item could be restring to fit into the story. Heck, for just plain writing a good story. Just for getting level 50. For passing 10,000 prestige. More restrings!

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Postby Karikhan » Thu May 30, 2002 9:47 am

cleric shaman druid are priest class, not mage.... so new roots belt doesnt affect us

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Postby kiryan » Thu May 30, 2002 10:20 am

did i indicate to the otherwise?
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Postby Jurdex » Thu May 30, 2002 12:36 pm

Kiryan, at one point you call the sapphire belt a demi-artifact that will now net people great trades.

Then you go on to say that the only folks without such belt are newbies who couldn't even trade for it if they wanted to.

Which is it?

The belt is !mage. Big freaking deal. Would you rather they nerf all of the old belts too? Would it please you?

The game is constantly being balanced, forget that seemed to have.

If there is never going to be a pwipe, then the game has to be balanced to affect the influx of eq. Perhaps a new area maker in the near future will make a great nifty belt for mages. They have that option now. Look at it from an overall perspective and there isn't much to bitch about.

Oh, and if eldritch's -str is such a big deal as a mage, wear elemental control rings. Those are pretty darn nice.

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Postby rylan » Thu May 30, 2002 2:13 pm

I'd probably trade my old roots belt for the new one becuase I like the new ansi.

And *nod* dorn.. its getting kinda hard for zone writers to put in eq that'll make people come to your zone.. so some room had to be made for new eq.
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Postby kiryan » Thu May 30, 2002 2:19 pm

jurdex, yes its a demi artifact now. it doesnt load its at least 2x better than anything else available for mages. maybe i should call it a quasi artifact.

If quest gods gave away a 54 hp belt with +18 str (17 hps and 9 str better than what exists), i bet a few people would be up in arms about how unfair that is ect...

on trade, obviously a few people will trade these, theres a ton in the game already, and they will likely command a high price getting higher as time goes on.

as far as mages wearing other eq, thats fine. i can support that. i wouldnt mind more variety in what people wear; some eq is too dominant cause it plain owns. If this change was made specifically to diversify what people wear on their fingers i got news for you, it aint gonna change that. At most making this belt !mage will make about 5% of the players wear talons instead of dorf/balor gloves and get by with 22 less hps (17 from belt, 5 from gloves).

Was this item so uber that it needed to be changed? If it was that uber, why didnt we change all the old ones too... either the item needed to be changed or it didnt. So, finish the change or undo it.

ya know if the old belt rare loaded and the new belt mostly loaded, i wouldnt be complaining since it would still be possible to get them though extremely difficult. Any eq that is worthy of being made !load probably needs to be removed from the game or changed.

Am i the only person that thinks this way?
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Postby Ilshadrial » Thu May 30, 2002 3:03 pm

Um, call it a unique not an artifact/relic, geez.

I think all the belts should be changed to the new flags, or the item should have been replaced with something totally different in the first place.

Kevin

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Postby Dalar » Thu May 30, 2002 3:37 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by rylan:
And *nod* dorn.. its getting kinda hard for zone writers to put in eq that'll make people come to your zone.. so some room had to be made for new eq.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That is poor reasoning imho. There should be belts that are pure hp, and items with mixed stats. If there was a 20-30 hp belt with some maxint, I would never wear my roots belt when I play Dalar. Want some more examples? 25 hp +18 str. ac 7 +25 hp +9 agi. ac 7 +20 hp detect magic. 20 hp -3 sv petri add a prot. there are SO MANY possibilites you can make Rylan. Any wise player would drop maxhps for increases in other areas. I take a 100 hp drop so i'm -20 in breath/spell, -53 ac with armor spell.

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Postby moritheil » Thu May 30, 2002 8:21 pm

I've posted about this before. There can't be 50 60-hps rings that load every boot. It simply won't work. Thus if there are going to be new zones with not better, but *similar* eq to the existing ones, and the zones are escalating, the economics of the situation demand a nerf on the old eq.

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Postby kiryan » Thu May 30, 2002 8:55 pm

ok so nerf the eq. don't half nerf it and leave 100 quasi uniques in the game. it makes no sense what so ever. And before ya go around making changes, you should really make sure you know exactly what it is you want to accomplish and work out a plan.

plan out a route, let us know what your going for then do it. dont have to make all the changes at once, but we should talk about the changes and the objectives. i have no idea whats going on, i just see a change that downgrades a class but only the new folks to that class. !sense i can only sit back and wonder if there is a method to the madness.
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Postby Tilandal » Fri May 31, 2002 6:53 am

Hmm, Actualy I think Kiryan has a valid point. If the old belt doesnt load anywhere anymore it is a bit unfair. It would be better to either have it load in a different location, make the fight harder, or change all the belts. Still theres probably going to be a new belt of compariable stats in a new zone so this is probably a non-issue.

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Postby old depok » Fri May 31, 2002 12:40 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by kiryan:
<B>ok so nerf the eq. don't half nerf it and leave 100 quasi uniques in the game. it makes no sense what so ever. And before ya go around making changes, you should really make sure you know exactly what it is you want to accomplish and work out a plan.

plan out a route, let us know what your going for then do it. dont have to make all the changes at once, but we should talk about the changes and the objectives. i have no idea whats going on, i just see a change that downgrades a class but only the new folks to that class. !sense i can only sit back and wonder if there is a method to the madness.</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


I'll give the gods the benefit of the doubt that they know what they are doing and have thought it through. They are doing a great job this go around and tend to have the "love of the game" in mind with most of what they do. I also don't think that they need to tell us everything they are doing and why. I trust them. They want to make the game better. If we have REASONABLE, well thought out IDEAS as to how to help them with this I think we should try to HELP them.

Personally, I like changes to the eq. I think that it makes things more interesting as long as it does not prevent you from wanting to do a zone completely.

I am looking forward to more zones being added like the elemental tower. Lots of fun, good experience, nice variety of items, different loading mobs each time, etc.

Also enjoy the restrings of items you are finding like the orb in elemental tower, and the eq in meilich swamp (I never spell this right). Nice to have different sets on people.

Frankly, I think we should all lighten up a bit. The game is actually more enjoyable when there is greater risk.
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Postby kiryan » Fri May 31, 2002 1:12 pm

risk, when we start talking about risk?

im hoping that they have a plan, im just pointing out something that I think didnt make any sense.

on making way for new eq... shall we talk about the elemental tower zone? They had no problem adding a 13 hp -3 ss pff earring which basically owns all over fireweed (which is/was one of the few mageable pff eq and until recently rather rare). Oh and why downgrade a unique zone zone that has only one piece of eq? Surely, there had to have been better choices... downgrading imix earring? So, basically, I don't buy the to make way for new eq argument. if thats the reason, then I think there are some serious flaws in the plan.

Also, I thought that it was kinda cool that pretty much everyone had a compelling reason to go to roots at least once which is one of the most unique zones in the game imo. If it was too easy for the reward, they could've beefed it up some more.

Unless Im missing something, this change makes no sense. No sense changes probably shouldnt be made.

[This message has been edited by kiryan (edited 05-31-2002).]
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Postby Guest » Sat Jun 01, 2002 6:56 am

It comes down to this.

We had several options with the belt. It could not stay in its current form, because as Areas Gods, part of our job is to balance the mud.

We made the belt rareload, and people complained.

We could have lowered its stats significantly (e.g. 25 hps +4 str) but in its current form its far better then every other belt right now. As far as I understand, Cyric probably (don't quote me, I'm not positive) realized that this item is the greatest boon to mages, and in that sense is way too powerful for them. The other class which typically have more strength to begin with wouldn't be affected as much.

Instead of having 100 mages complain that the belt they have is no longer useful for them, I belive cyric decided to make a new belt for the zone with ONE limiting factor.

I know if it was me, the belt would have been nerfed, HARD. Just FYI. Image

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Postby kiryan » Sat Jun 01, 2002 10:18 am

so it was to downgrade mage hps and str. please nerf it for real. You made a change to affect mages, but you didnt affect the majority of the old school mages. umm, arent these the guys who you should be most interested in affecting? i dont want to be as disrespectful as to call this half ass, but thats what i think.

its a game and if it needs balance, balance it. don't be afraid of player's wrath, if your really worried give em a free restring or somethin.

not like you were worried about flagging pmail of like !mage... (yea i realize the difference is 3 people vs 100 people).

[This message has been edited by kiryan (edited 06-01-2002).]
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Postby Dalar » Sat Jun 01, 2002 8:41 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Tilandal:
<B>Still theres probably going to be a new belt of compariable stats in a new zone so this is probably a non-issue.

</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yea, it's called Tiamat.

Re: Kiryan. Fireweed still rocks over the earring of the flame. Ansi is better, stats are better. If you want to argue stats, -1 breath is much better than -3 sv spell b/c sv spell is as common as hp gear. Also, the flame earring is somewhat harder to get and is technically a rare.

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Postby Sarell » Sun Jun 02, 2002 11:19 am

We were not vexed Lost! You gave us ammunition at you for months! It was fabulous!
Just on a side note, I would like to see something else get thrwon into the roots shemozel. I know heaps of people who won't go there already, even jsut some mediocre things would be good, EG a 30HP ring, a ac8 1 1 mask, etc etc... Something added so roots is not abandoned! *shrug* ...I love those crazy roots...

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Postby kiryan » Mon Jun 03, 2002 8:58 am

i wont argue too much dalar cause they are close imo... -1 svb is cool but you need svb half as often as you need svsp.

i would like to fight dragons -20 svb. -1 on an earring will prolly end up making me -21 which is pointless unless you have a real specific eq set... kosty leggings (2?), svb eyepatch(2?), 1 fireweed (1). i prolly dont know some other svb eq so perhaps 1 is useful in other sets too...

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